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Cycling around Iceland – Plan of days and distances

I have read a lot before starting my trip in Iceland, but I struggled to find useful information about a reasonable daily itinerary to go around the island at a reasonable pace.

There are many ways to cycle in Iceland, but yet not as many as in other countries. The roads are few and the good tarmac ones are even less (yet still better from what I read than 5 years ago). The reality is that if you want to cycle around the whole island there are (with few exceptions) only two options. To cycle on road #1 clockwise or counterclockwise. You can extend or shorten the trip by avoiding or adding to your journey the:

Snaefellsjoekull National Park peninsula

North-Western fjords

Coastal line in the North-East (from what I’ve read the roads are poor in the very North-East tip of the island)

Here is my initial plan for going around the island in 18 days. You can shorten the trip by linking the shorter days into single days. I think it will be harder to extend the 18 days to more unless you wild-camp as there is little in between the locations mentioned.

Day

km

Place

Day 1

~50

REYKJAVÍK ECO CAMPSITE

Day 2

???

AKRANES CAMPING SITE

Day 2

112

BORGARNES CAMPING GROUND

Day 3

78

Hotel Edda Laugar Saelingsdal

Day 4

128

Blönduós Camping Grounds, Gladheimar

Day 5

143

CAMPING SITE HAMRAR

Day 6

93.6

Husavik Campground

Day 7

54.5

Bjarg campsite

Day 8

166

Egilsstaðir Campsite

Day 9

92.3

BREIÐDALSVÍK CAMPING GROUND

Day 10

64.2

DJÚPIVOGUR CAMPING GROUND

Day 11

104

Hofn Camping and Cottages

Day 12

~130

N/A – Tjaldsvæðið í Svínafelli

Day 13

~75.8

Camping Site and Cottages Kirkjubær II

Day 14

~102

Skogafoss

Day 15

110

Tjaldsvæði Campground

Day 16

111

SOUTHCENTRAL MOTEL

Day 17

90.1

GRINDAVÍK CAMPING SITE

Day 18

47.1

N/A – Keflavik International Airport

For the sake of presentation I’ve reduced the information in the table, but if you want to see the original table with contact information, notes, etc., please follow the link below.

Please note that I didn’t actually follow this plan to the note (as you can see by the posts I’ve been doing on the trip), however it was a very good baseline for me. I am sharing it in the hopes that it will be of use to others as well.